


Repression

by edgelordjonesthethird



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Animal Death, Drabble, F/M, Past Child Abuse, Podfic, Polly is a psycho, Post 3x21, Post-Canon Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 14:10:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18779854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edgelordjonesthethird/pseuds/edgelordjonesthethird
Summary: The truth has a way of coming out.or Betty learns the truth while under anesthesia





	Repression

**Author's Note:**

> The words in italics are past events.
> 
> Just a little thought I had while watching the episode

 

Betty thinks she’s at Jughead’s house at first glance. She doesn’t know how she’s gotten there but she just is. After a careful evaluation of the main floor she realizes it’s not his house but her own. There is no pool table in the dining room with that horrendously tacky Serpent Insignia that she doesn’t have the heart to tell Jughead she hates when he shows it off after picking it out with his mother and father during their brief reunion. Something Alice Cooper would deem trashy or “redneck chic”, Betty would never go that far and simply understands the two families have different tastes. Instead sits the oak table she recalls many family meals at and the vase of Tiffany glass that Hal had gotten her mother many Christmases ago. Before everything fell apart, well, at least openly so.

Betty turns on the spot in her spot in the foyer; she glances at the floral print ceramic bowl, the one she threw her keys in every afternoon after school back when her mother started working and she along with Polly became latchkey kids. Fond memories flood back to her as she remembers the shenanigans she and her sister got into while her parents were both at work; the smores for dinner prepared in the living room fireplace or the blanket forts they giggled themselves to sleep in.

            When she glances up in the mirror behind the offending bowl for a moment she expects to see that little girl looking back at her who still has all the vigor in the world. Instead, the tired green eyes that have seen a little too much for their age gaze back at her with bare feet and adorning a faded hospital gown. Had she escaped from The Farm somehow? Was this one of Edgar’s tactics to try and get her to see the “truth”?

            Betty’s reverie is interrupted by wails of what sounds like a cat and the shrieks from what sounds like a small child. She’s not sure why there is a small child in her home, but Betty never one for flight mode goes into full fight mode and her feet slam against the Cherrywood floors and carry her to Polly’s bedroom and the bathroom with the purple motif that Polly had spent the Summer begging Alice for.

A little blonde girl stands there screaming, she looks to be about seven or eight in a pristine cotton dress and two tight pigtails. While a girl a few years older with the same blonde hair is hunched over the bathtub with shaking shoulders.

_“Please stop, Polly, I said I was sorry!” The little girl sniffles and grabs the older girl’s arm. “Please don’t hurt Caramel, please!”_

Polly? It dawns on Betty at that moment that she was looking back at herself. The little girl was her. What is happening?

_Polly turns to Betty with a look in her eye that could only be described as evil. “Don’t worry, Betty, I’m only teaching Caramel how to swim” she laughs forcefully._

_“He can’t breathe!” Betty screams and goes to tackle her sister away from the baby._

_Polly lunges towards Betty. “This will teach you to respect my belongings, don’t come in my room and touch my stuff again.” She seethes and pulls the lifeless tabby out of the bathtub and throws it back towards Betty. “There you go, you wanted her back.”_

Betty steps back in horror, had this actually happened? Her precious cat the one her mother had gotten her for her eighth birthday, the one so many had claimed ran away had been murdered by the hands of her once beloved older sister? At one point Betty would have found the situation completely farfetched but since Polly’s involvement with the Farm and how her “truth” was being spoken more and more recently, Betty wasn’t so sure. She quickly ran out of the room, she can’t bear witness to this anymore. She needs to find an escape out of this memory.

When Betty runs out of the room she doesn’t find herself back in Polly’s bedroom surrounded by her sister’s Jonas Brothers posters but she finds herself standing at the bottom of the stairs. She is still stuck in this nightmare of what she can only gather are her repressed memories. Edgar’s tactics seem to be his undoing in this situation because more truths seem to unravel before Betty’s eyes at this moment.

_Little Betty stands at the top of steps cradling the cat while Polly charges towards her. “I’m going go to tell Mommy what you did and you’ll be in so much trouble!” she screams at her sister. “We need to get Caramel to vet, maybe they can help her!”_

_“No!” Polly roars and extends her arms causing the smaller girl to tumble down the steps and hit the floor, her head bouncing down everyone until she lies lifeless on the floor at the bottom. Polly isn’t done, she picks up their mother’s prized Tiffany vase and picks it up, shattering the vase on the girl and the deceased cat. She then calmly walks over to the phone and picks it up, she dials a number and waits a moment then a familiar wobble comes from her mouth, clearly it is forced. “Mommy, Polly, Betty killed Caramel and then went crazy and tried to push me down the stairs I had to stop her Mom, I pushed her I pushed her, what should I do?” She sobs, though her face shows no emotion._

Betty grabs her chest and the house starts to spin; the memory only seems to get more and more horrifying, if this the truth what else has her family been hiding from her? This is her truth? All these years she felt this penetrating darkness fill her when it wasn’t her but the family? She realizes she has been putting herself in line for a family that would never do the same for her.  Has she ever truly had a family? Would she ever?

“Betts?” She hears suddenly; the voice fills the room like she imagines Joan of Arc heard god. It's soft and soothing to her hears. The voice she fell in love with. “Betts, C' mon baby, wake up.”

Betty’s head starts to hurt and soon she is back on an examination table in Edgar’s lab; aside from a pounding headache. She feels fully intact but she is still afraid to open her eyes, a gentle stroke is against her cheek. She knows these hands, these hands she has grown so attached to. She finally opens her eyes and is met by the thunderstorm blue eyes of her beloved. Jughead stands hovering over her, he adorns his Serpent jacket. She takes a quick glimpse around; the nurses are gone and Edgar is lying in a bloody heap in the corner, clearly a new victim of Jughead’s switchblade. He came for her, he always does.

She knows who her family is. She knows. She suddenly realizes she always knew.

**Author's Note:**

> I tried, please leave comments.


End file.
